As a great man once said, "I’m allowed to go off on a tangent. I can also go off on a secant if I want to!" The fact that I do not believe in the tangent curve is notwithstanding.
Also, "I am angry nearly every day of my life, but I have learned not to show it; and I still try to hope not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do it." -Louisa May Alcott.
...Maybe this will help me not show it. Not vocally, at least.

Friday, September 19, 2008

A little late to the party.

Okay, fine. I give up. I give in. Whatever. Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t I? And if everyone else jumped off a bridge, Lauren, would you do that, too? Probably. It’d be damn lonely on this planet without anyone else about (or, abuut, as our neighbors to the north so charmingly say). So yeah, I’d jump off the bridge. But I’d read all the books first. And eat all the chocolate. And then I’d jump.

And so, I jump. Headlong, footloose, fancy-free (insert cute descriptor here) into the dreaded and long-avoided world of blogging.

Weeks ago, post-pointless rant about the stupids on the internet, Andy says to me (he says), “maybe you should just write a blog.” And you know what? He was right. I should just. And then yesterday Sarah said I would “do well with a blog,” and that I was the right about of smart and angry for it. Well, thanks. More angry than smart, no doubt, but we have Ross for the smart. And I’m not running for office so I don’t so much need smarts. Or maybe smarts aren’t actually a prerequisite? Ah, more on (moron?) that later.

I am an angry person. I don’t deny that. Stupid people make me angry -and there are a lot stupid people out there these days. (What keeps me going, really, is the hope that for every stupid person rattling off about nonsense they don’t actually understand, there are two or three smart people with sense enough to stay quiet.)

I consider myself a smart person. Sort of smart, anyway. But not smart enough to stay quiet, I guess. And when I find myself posting witty diatribes about how the educated voter is a good voter and that maybe two men getting married to each other doesn’t actually threaten you or your relationship or your little insular world in any way, I am personally attacked and derided for daring to have an opinion. Well, screw that. I need a place to spew my anger, where I can pretend I’m having an impact, but where no one can contradict me.

Even though I consider myself a writer (majored in it, creatively, in high school; worked for the newspaper in college; still eek out the occasional sorry excuse for a poem now and then -have you seen my Good Reads page?), I have long avoided the world of the blog (blogosphere? is that it?). Maybe because I didn’t figure anyone would be interested in what I have to say. But then, probably 90% of the bloggers out there have nothing to say and yet they keep saying it. Maybe because my first blog experience was from a ‘friend’ who pretty much posted her diary on-line for the world to see, and I’m just not comfortable sharing that sort of information. Who wants to know what I had for breakfast (although this morning I had Chocolate Underground yogurt and I have to repeat in case you haven’t heard: it’s 220 calories of AWESOME!!!!) or that I forgot to put in earrings or that I’m having a deeply personal issue that I really shouldn’t share publicly or that we’re out of bacon or that I’m sad because my sandwich is soggy? No one, that’s who.

Was it Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln who said the thing about keeping silent and being thought a fool rather than speak and remove all doubt? Well, I like to think I’m not a fool but there are so many other fools speaking, I might as well add my voice to the clatter. Especially since I know the difference between “bread” and “breed.” Besides, “Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act.” So this lady is going to protest. Maybe too much, but so it goes.